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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

A Lesson Learned

I have gotten in trouble with procrastination time and time again, and this year it hurt me more than it has ever before. I have been struggling to stay caught up in my college algebra class. Math has always come pretty easy for me, but this class is harder than any math class than I've taken before. It had discouraged me to the point where I just want to give in and drop it. At the beginning of each chapter we get an outline of the assignments and the dates by which they are to be completed by. These assignments weren't due till the day of the test, all combined, completed and stapled to get full credit. The fact that it is our own responsibility to remember, to do and to stay caught up is hard and stressful. To myself I would think, "well since they aren't due tomorrow, why should I do the assignment tonight?" Eventually this caught up to me, the night before the test I scurry to get all the homework during the chapter finished. Due to the fact that I would stay up all night completing the work that should have already been done, I often found myself exhausted and not able to function properly during the test. No matter what I was in a lose lose situation. I knew that I need to direct more attention to my homework, but I went through five chapters without changing, don't ask me why. In class each day we are given a quiz that is based on the subjects we learned and the homework that we had the previous day. Not doing my homework didn't help me any when it came to these quizzes. I would be in the middle of the quiz and parts and pieces of the lesson bombarded my memory, but I was never for sure how or what was required. My quiz scores for the first five chapters looked ugly on my transcript and I was ashamed. Tests and quizzes are the most part of the grading in college algebra and the fact that I wasn't doing very well on either of these categories put a huge damper on my grade. I am an "A" average student, last quarter I got my first "C" as a final grade. I know that is average across the state, but that isn't good enough for me, I demand more from myself. I really considered dropping the class, I figured that if I couldn't get a good grade out of the class why take it. I went in to talk to Mrs. Seegmiller, the teacher of the class, and she told me a story about her sons. She goes on to tell me that her oldest son missed a word on a spelling test in elementary school and she grounded him for a week. Mrs. Seegmiller asked me if I thought that was a bit harsh, and I kind of nodded, but proceeded to hear her reasoning. She said she grounded him because he didn't give it his all. He had had the words to study and all the resources there to give him the good grade, he just didn't apply himself. The second son was taking a college class and came home with his final grade being a "C", but she didn't ground him. Mrs. Seegmiller asked her son if he had given the class his very best, the second son looked her in the eye and told her, "Mom I have learned more and done more in this class than any class I have ever taken." Finishing her stories Mrs. Seegmiller looked at me and asked me if I was really giving this class my all. Without waiting for my answer she went on to say, "Kelsie you aren't giving your full potential." That day motivated me to work harder. Since then I have gone in almost everyday after school just to do my homework. I figure that if I just do it there then I won't put it off any more and as well if I get stuck on something then Mrs. Seegmiller is there to help me. I have taken one test and in drawing to the end of another chapter. My grade is now a "B+" and always improving, I feel like I have over come a great opposition and I have learned a valuable lesson that I will take with me for a long time. Firstly I learned that procrastinating, even if you do eventually get the work done, is always worse of in the long run. Secondly I learned that in order to receive a great reward of accomplishment in anything I do I need to give my full potential in everything I do.

(I wrote this for a quick write in language and figured hey I better post because I haven't in a while.)